My heart was heavy yesterday. All day long I was thinking about our trip to Israel Palestine and the many wonderful, spirit-filled people we had met there. Then Joan told me that the Israelis had refused to allow our West Bank Christian brothers and sisters to enter Jerusalem to celebrate the passion and death of Jesus. My mind immediately went back to our visit with an American Jewish settler in Efrata. In claiming his right to live in the Holy land (actually to illegally live in occupied territory in contravention of international law and two United Nation’s resolutions), the settler vehemently decried the fact that the Jews had been barred from access to their sacred sites for so long. Now they are barring Christians from their sacred sites. The oppressed become the oppressors!
I sent emails to Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour from Ibillin, Abuna Raed from Taybeh (Ephraim), Rev. Mitri Raheb from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Christmas in Bethlehem, and the family we shared a meal with in Beit Sahour. I also sent a letter detailing the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people to my congressional delegation, the three presidential candidates and Secretary of State Rice. Continue reading →

Reuters. Jerusalem. April 25, 33.
Our correspondents in Jerusalem report that a little known carpenter turned preacher-healer was executed like a common criminal. Jesus, from the backwater Galilean village of Nazareth, was pronounced dead on the cross around noon on the eve of the Passover Sabbath. Continue reading →

There is an icy frost deep-down things.
It cold chills and renders inert
The clouds of compassion
Which should warm the dark-filled night.
Chilled to the masses’ misery
It rests couch-comfortable
Sating every selfish want-whim
With comfort food and new toys. Continue reading →

Picture this in your mind. You are standing with a group of 15 people at the south Gable of the village church in Knock, County Mayo, Ireland. It is August 21, 1879. It is night and it is raining. All of a sudden you notice dead silence. You and the others turn and see. You are speechless. You think you are seeing things but so is everyone else. Against the backdrop of the cold, grey, wet stone walls of the gable, you are with fifteen people—men and women, young and old—and you are witnessing a vision. Mary has appeared in your poor, oppressed and downtrodden country. Continue reading →

Given the support for the Iraq war among many Christians and following a suggestion by Kevin Phillips in his book, American Theocracy, I have written the following satire. It is sung, hummed or read to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers with all due apologies to the composer of the original hymn.

Onward, Oil Producers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Exxon going on before.
Royal Blackwat’r leads against the foe;
forward into battle see Dyncorp banners go!
Refrain:
Onward, Oil Producers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Exxon going on before. Continue reading →